difference of each brand's lens feeling

[Alan Gales]

There are subtle differences in the glass but not enough to worry about.

With modern glass let price and condition be your guide as to which brand to buy.

[richardman]

You guys are doing it wrong.

For the highest details and resolution, you MUST get the APO Sironar S or the Symmar XL lens. The European elves work their magic dust so that the images are 30% brighter, the MTF 15% better from edge to edge.

Nikon lens, OTOH, is the bestest of the best Nippon has to offer. They have virgin Himalayan grinding glass with the finest sake for lubricant.

Fujinon! What a story to tell. They said that the Thunder God lives on Mt. Fuji and forges the Fuji glass himself, hence the name. The quality of such has not been seen by mortal men or women since the Heinan era, and that was quite a while ago.

Did someone say Dagor, son, pull up a chair and listen to the legends of the Gold Rim Dagor where St. Ansel....

[jnantz]

the lens feeling is onlypart of the equation because someone with skill
can make that feeling turn into something else.

[Jac@stafford.net]

Budweiser beer goggles are definitely superior to Canon's.

[Tin Can]

I am getting my eyes examined. Tuesday. Can't see shit.

[David Karp]

The thing about this question is that it seems quite subjective. I had a friend who insisted that Rodenstock was far superior to Schneider, and that he would never use a Schneider. He "knew" that his Caltar lenses were Rodenstock. He was right about his 75 and 90. Problem was his 150mm Was a Caltar II-S and his 360mm was too and both were made by Schneider! I have heard others say that Nikon lenses are cold and Fuji are not, and that Nikon lenses match better with Schneider, etc. Coatings change over time. As mentioned, the color temp of the light changes all day long, film choice makes a difference, and all these things impact color rendering.

I solved this problem by a) not caring and b) shooting black and white. :-)

[Kirk Gittings]

In the day if you shot chromes for catalogs and used grey backgrounds, commercial photographers would stick to one lens, or at least one brand-series of lenses to minimize subtle color shifts between shoots. They would also try to use all the same emulsion over the entire project and be consistent with every factor they could. And it was still imperfect enough that they would often use the weakest Wratten gel filter to correct color between batches.

Nobody works like this anymore. Most outdoor photographers who still use chrome are shooting under an infinitely large soft box whose color temperature varies 6000 degree per day, inconsistently. The rest use negative film so any subtle differences between lenses' color cast is unknowable and moot.

Absolutely true back in the day. You could lay out a set of transparencies on a light table and see the difference so we stuck to the same brand and era of a given manufacturer so the coatings were consistent. Beyond that light table view it was irrelevant because printing or magazine reproduction would change it all anyway. Now? don't give a hoot because we don't shoot transparencies for reproduction anymore and it is easy to match a "look" in a file.

[William Whitaker]

Heck, my eyes each have different a color response, so can't be too worried about differences between lenses. My left eye is definitely cooler than my right. But they don't have a different "feeling". Maybe that's why I stick to black & white. Partly, anyway.

[Richard Johnson]

Absolutely true back in the day. You could lay out a set of transparencies on a light table and see the difference so we stuck to the same brand and era of a given manufacturer so the coatings were consistent. Beyond that light table view it was irrelevant because printing or magazine reproduction would change it all anyway. Now? don't give a hoot because we don't shoot transparencies for reproduction anymore and it is easy to match a "look" in a file.

For catalogs they would try to save money by ganging up the separations and doing several chromes all at one time, so it was imperative that they match. What made it hard is that they would want to take film shot a few years before and mix it with newly done images.... this was at the time they still used large process cameras and only the best stuff was scanned.

[hiend61]

Most of my lenses are Rodenstock. Lately I purchased one Schneider and a Nikkor, and I can´t say they have a different personality than the Rodenstock. Chose a lenses to match your needs and do not worry about the brand. All big four are fine.